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07/21/2009 02:09:53 AM · #1 |
Ok, I have an older Power Mac G4 that's beginning to have HD issues. I have 2 160GB Hard Drives and a 120GB HD, all internal with one empty slot. One of the 160GB drives, a WD I got from an old PC, is failing. I've backed up the data, so that's not a big issue, but, I'd like to make this machine more useful, if possible. I want to use it as networked storage, but since the biggest ATA drives I can find are 160GB, that would limit me to 640GB of storage, or 320GB with a mirrored RAID system. What I'd like to do is get one or two of these and then add either 2 or 4 1TB drives to the machine configured in a mirrored RAID array.
I know I could buy a new Mac, but I have this one and aside from the ATA drive failure, it runs well.
Suggestions? Anyone have experience with the Sonnet Tech card I linked to? Any alternative approaches that won't cost an arm and a leg? |
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07/21/2009 07:55:12 AM · #2 |
| Your idea of adding SATA is a good one, *if* the mac will support the hardware. I might look elsewhere for the adapter, though. The linked adapter is not the current SATA spec, which is 3.0Gb/s. |
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07/21/2009 07:56:32 AM · #3 |
For a Mac that old, I wouldn't bother. Your computer's bus speed will limit the transfer rate anyway. Get two external Firewire drives (ideally with a dedicated Firewire card) and use Drive Setup to make a mirrored RAID.
What model is your G4? You can get ATA hard drives larger than 160, but some G4's will only recognize the first 120GB. |
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07/21/2009 08:59:25 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by kirbic:
The linked adapter is not the current SATA spec, which is 3.0Gb/s. |
It wouldn't matter. The maximum transfer rate of the PCI bus itself is 533 MB/s. This would give you 500GB of mirrored storage that you could carry forward to another computer for $233.
Message edited by author 2009-07-21 09:32:58. |
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07/21/2009 09:49:11 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by kirbic:
The linked adapter is not the current SATA spec, which is 3.0Gb/s. |
It wouldn't matter. The maximum transfer rate of the PCI bus itself is 533 MB/s. This would give you 500GB of mirrored storage that you could carry forward to another computer for $233. |
Yep, a 32-bit, 133MHz PCI bus has a transfer rate of 533 megabytes per second, which translates to 4264 megabits per second, or 4.16 Gb/s. So the G4 PCI bus appears easily fast enough to support SATA 2.0. Whether there will be a perceptible performance difference is another matter. |
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07/21/2009 10:11:53 AM · #6 |
Well in that case, this might be useful info. Also worth noting that Firewire 800 on a G4 is essentially equal to SATA on a faster G5 PCI-X bus (scroll down to last graph).
Message edited by author 2009-07-21 10:17:27. |
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07/21/2009 07:59:35 PM · #7 |
Thanks guys. I think I'll try to find a Mac friendly SATA II PCI card. Most of the ones I find are PCI Express and I don't think I have that in my G4.
I believe this is a "Quicksilver" G4. It has a single 800MHz processor and runs OS X 10.4 Tiger. I can't upgrade to Leopard because the processor isn't fast enough and I believe that the upcoming Snow Leopard drops support for Power PC...I dunno...I just want/need a Mac that the kids can play on and has a boatload of storage accessible over my network and possibly as a media storage center for movies and the like so I can stream through my Xbox.
I use my MacBook for all of my own work. |
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07/21/2009 08:46:56 PM · #8 |
| Here's a ton of Mac SATA controllers (the FirmTek supposedly works well), and this would enable Leopard and double the speed of your G4. |
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07/22/2009 08:56:41 PM · #9 |
You CAN run Leopard on G4s – you just can't install it directly (there are software helpers though).
I used a G4 attached to a G5 iMac and booted the G4 in target mode. Then I ran the Leopard DVD in the iMac and set the G4 as the install drive ;-).
Or if you have a Leopard install on an external FireWire drive you can clone it over with Carbon Copy Cloner.
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